COASTAL SHIPPING.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVI, Issue 14432, 24 July 1907, Page 6

COASTAL SHIPPING.

The winter, for all ita mildness, has demanded and obtained its usual toll among the small shipping of the coast,' and it is still impossible to feel satisfied that tho supervision of coastal craft is as efficient as it should be. During tho last day or two quite a number of vessels have come to grief. This morning a schooner is reported ashore at Monganui and a scow is reported wrecked At Ohui, with loss of life. These accidents are doubtless to be attributed to stress of weather, but in too many oases the failure of a small ship to weather 'a gale is duo to faulty construction. In spite of the formidable agitation of last year the State has not yet realised its responsibilities in regard to coastal shipping. Only a few weeks ago the passengers on a small steamer trading from Matakana to Waitemata found themselves at sea for nearly two days with a very inadequate supply of food. The trip was expected to occupy about five hours, but was extended by rough weather for more than thirty hours, and even then it was only the timely arrival of another vessel that relieved the situation. In this case tho victualling of the vessel was entrusted to the steward, who had a contract for the supplies, but whatever arrangement tho owners may have made it was clearly their duty to see that the vessel was provisioned against the ordinary accidents of wind a-nd weather. Apparently the intervention of tho State is required in the interests of the public. Parliament should be moved again, to take into consideration tho whole question of packet licenses, which was raised, incidentally, during the course of tho Kia Ora inquiry. Tho Kia Ora was wrecked in the early hours of the morning one day last month while on a voyage from Waitara to Kawhia. She seems to have got eight or ten milesi off her course on a forty-mile journey, and was wrecked on a reef off shore, tho captain and two others being drowned., The judgment of the Court of Inquiry, which we publish this morning, leaves it an open question how tho steamer camo to be off her course,, but the public, wo imagine, have long tsince made up their minds on the point. It is possible that the Minister of Marine may order a further inquiry into some of tho circumstances attending the wreck, but after the hard swearing of witnesses at the first inquiry it is probable that the whole truth \vill never bo revealed. Whatever further developments may occur, however, it is clear that there is urgent need for tho revision of the conditions on which packet licenses aro granted to coastal steamers. On the Kia Ora tho chief steward seems to have conducted tho bar for his personal profit, an arrangement that might obviously lead to very undesirable consequences. In our opinion no harm would bo dene by cancelling all.packet licenses issued to email craft, and we have grave doubts concerning the wisdom of permitting bare to be opened on any vessels trading along the coast*